ISLAMABAD: In a letter to Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, two more members of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) ask him to appoint justices to the open Supreme Court positions and express concern that a delay could lead to “unwanted rumours of petty politics.”
A week after Justice Qazi Faez Isa had written a letter to the top judge for the same demand, Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Justice Mansoor Ali Shah jointly sent Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial a letter, a copy of which is available with Geo.tv.
The justices ruled that whenever there is a vacancy in the JCP, meetings shall be automatically organised as soon as possible in order to fulfil the constitutional requirement under Article 175A(8) of the Constitution.Justice Isa worries about a “dysfunctional” SC.
Justice Isa previously requested CJP Bandial in a letter to “quickly” call a meeting of the JCP to fill the open SC seats because open seats could render the nation’s highest court “dysfunctional.”
The senior puisne judge emphasised that the five vacancies have cost the supreme court 726 working days and that during this time, “more than 50,000 cases have piled at the Supreme Court.”
Justice Isa wrote to the CJP in the letter, “It pains me to state that cases filed in the Supreme Court are unlikely to ever get determined if the vacancies are not filled in.”The judge reminded the JCP chairman that “the Supreme Court, which has roughly 700 staff members and a significant budget, has been extensively invested in by people.”
In addition, he claimed that it was “not clear why the Supreme Court” was operating at a 30% decreased capacity under such conditions.
